Once assembled, this kit -- developed by community researchers from the Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science -- enables you to collect your own aerial photos from up to 1000 ft. Using the open source MapKnitter web-based software, you can stitch the resulting images into a web-viewable map -- your own "counter-cartography" Google Maps. Use it to tell a different story from the "official" map -- document contamination (it was used to map the BP oil spill) or wetlands loss, or to record a temporary condition like the Occupy Oakland encampment.

Over the last 10 years, I have learned my trade and developed my vision without traditional training. Photography has been both passion and paycheck. I learned the technical arts of film, chemistry and printing through the good fortune of working among photographers, artists, and intellectuals. My travels, both domestic and abroad, have given me knowledge of the world and the passion to document it. Recently, my work has expanded to include not only the final photograph, but the interactions with my subjects

Modern Japan, the second largest economy in the world, is a land of contradictions.
Home to some of the most sophisticated technology and manufacturing, it also has communities whose daily life has changed little in the last 500 years. It is a place of great beauty, both in the landscapes and its celebrations, festivals, and traditional arts. Hiroji Kubota spent four years traveling the length and breadth of his country's many islands, capturing the magnificent diversity of the people and places along the way. From rice paddies to pachinko parlors, ancient temples to the Honda assembly plants, Kubota's lens has captured both the ordinary and the extraordinary of a dually antiquated and modern nation.